So, I didn't read the article but if these employees didn't want to be replaced by API they could theoretically be helping the AI team find weaknesses in system and improve the system even more quickly.
Not really.
Their job isn't to "identify" the shoplifting, but deal with the consequences and shoplifter after it has been identified.
So if the A.I. get's better, then they harass less innocent people, and the humans job gets better.
The employees job will be at greater risk when Walmart goes full ROBOCOP.
I mean, presumably Wal-Mart has excellent statistics on "shrinkage" from regular inventory checks like any store, as well as recording how often shoplifters are caught, and so they have clear data as to whether or not Everseen is an improvement or not. And I don't understand what this has to do with COVID-19 at all in the article. Finally, what do employees care about theft? It's not coming out of their paycheck. Fal…
My local walmart now has cameras getting your face at self checkout. I cover it with a bag before using checkout
If it bothers you so much, why not just use the regular checkout? Or just shop somewhere else? Do you cover their security cameras all around the store with bags or just the self-checkout one?
This seems a really odd place to draw the line on surveillance.
This is a very hard problem and thinking a product could do this without extremely high error rates is naive. Any implementation should use this as a supplement only, not replacement for humans. For example a human watching 10 checkouts and quickly manually reviewing scenes flagged as suspicious. Any implementation should also account for the fact that loss will still occur and account for that in the RoI. The fact t…
Preventing scanning one item and placing two on the bag? It's an easy problem. Just have scanned items be placed on a scale. People will be bagging stuff to take home, so just have bags placed on a scale and observe the weight increase as items are placed in the bag. You probably know the weight of one jug of milk, but even if you don't, it's easy to "learn" the weights of new SKUs statistically.
This has already been tried. I, personally, hated it so much that I just stopped using the self-checkouts whenever possible, because employee checkout was faster, even with the wait for customers queued before me. The weight check always brought the checkout process to a screeching halt, requiring an employee to come along and restart it, even with the smallest baskets in the best of conditions.
My local walmart now has cameras getting your face at self checkout. I cover it with a bag before using checkout
If it bothers you so much, why not just use the regular checkout? Or just shop somewhere else? Do you cover their security cameras all around the store with bags or just the self-checkout one? This seems a really odd place to draw the line on surveillance.
I've noticed that some stores put cameras behind cashiers such that they point at both the cashier and the customer.
Preventing scanning one item and placing two on the bag? It's an easy problem. Just have scanned items be placed on a scale. People will be bagging stuff to take home, so just have bags placed on a scale and observe the weight increase as items are placed in the bag. You probably know the weight of one jug of milk, but even if you don't, it's easy to "learn" the weights of new SKUs statistically.
Early self-check kiosks did this very poorly. It was super frustrating as a customer to be constantly asked to "please place the item in the bagging area", even when I already had, not to mention the hassle it caused when buying something you don't want to bag. Eventually I'm assuming they gave up on that and turned it off.
Checkouts in the UK still do this. They just seem to have gotten better at it, so I rarely have problems anymore. Possibly they loosened the tolerances.
Some around here hassle people for their receipts near the exit. It was already my least-favorite place to shop for a ton of reasons, so that was enough to stop me ever going. It's one thing at Costco where I agreed to it and they're very fast and nice. I'm not standing in line to get permission to leave friggin' Wal-Mart (yes I know you can just ignore them but they sometimes try to stop you and make a big deal of i…
Also Best Buy, which is particularly annoying as they watch you check out at the register five or ten feet from their post, then "randomly" (almost always) demand the receipt. Who are you checking, the cashier or the buyer? My guess is a deterrent for some kind of collusion.
Change of ownership happens at the point of sale. Toss them a cheery "no, thanks," and walk on by. They have no authority to detain you.
Same with Fry's. Not the same with Costco; there, you're subject to the membership agreements.
My local walmart now has cameras getting your face at self checkout. I cover it with a bag before using checkout
Your local Walmart has your face on camera dozens of times before you get to checkout. If you don't want Walmart storing images of your face, shop elsewhere.
If it bothers you so much, why not just use the regular checkout? Or just shop somewhere else? Do you cover their security cameras all around the store with bags or just the self-checkout one? This seems a really odd place to draw the line on surveillance.
I've noticed that some stores put cameras behind cashiers such that they point at both the cashier and the customer.
A lot of these cameras are intended to primarily capture the cashier, to prevent them from stealing cash from the till.
Preventing scanning one item and placing two on the bag? It's an easy problem. Just have scanned items be placed on a scale. People will be bagging stuff to take home, so just have bags placed on a scale and observe the weight increase as items are placed in the bag. You probably know the weight of one jug of milk, but even if you don't, it's easy to "learn" the weights of new SKUs statistically.
Early self-check kiosks did this very poorly. It was super frustrating as a customer to be constantly asked to "please place the item in the bagging area", even when I already had, not to mention the hassle it caused when buying something you don't want to bag. Eventually I'm assuming they gave up on that and turned it off.
It seems to be still on based on the fact that every self checkout has a scale and Walmart does have bag item prompts until you bag it. It isn't as annoying though.
My guess is that they have more tolerance for items not of the exact weight and/or more accurate scales.